At
the start of an investigation in Lupton House, the group went
on a walk-around of the building to see if anything could
be initially felt and thus find areas to leave recorders and
trigger objects. The group walked down from the second level
staff bedrooms and were making their way down the small staircase
back to the ground floor when an unusual sound was heard and
recorded. Just after this sound the videoer suddenly backed
off claiming that he had heard a doorhandle rattle next to
him.
Later, during a day visit to
Lupton House Mike, Kim and Chris were in the same area to
take photos for the Walkthrough page. When they went into
one particular room (highlighted in the photo on the left)
the noise that the mechanism made as the door was closing
was almost identical to what was heard during that night.
This would also explain the 'doorhandle rattling' just after
the sound was heard since the door would have just closed.
Below is a video containing what was recorded on the night
in question, and then what was recorded during our day visit.
If you listen carefully just after the whistling you can hear
a click where the door closes fully - this is also heard on
the comparison clip.
So, mystery solved, eh? However....
who opened the door?
If you watch the video you
can see that the whole group are walking down the stairway
in single file. As we were heading down nobody broke formation
to look into any other rooms or whathaveyou - we had just
looked in the staff bedrooms and were making our way down
stairs. If you watch the video recorded on the night you can
see us all walking down the stairs, and as the camera is panned
around before settling on the corridor you can see everybody
on the next flight of steps down continuing to the ground
level. Nobody in the group went out of the line to go exploring,
and this is backed up with the video. As you can see, the
thought of venturing down there only occured after the sound
had been heard.
On
the left here are two screencapture sections from the video
above. The clip on the left is from when the whistling sound
had just stopped and before the door clicked back into place,
and the clip on the right is from when the camcorder was refocused
back down the corridor after the event had taken place. Although
the quality is pretty low you can see that in the left clip
there is no door handle, and all that can be seen is the indent
and metal plate where the door grip clicks into place. However,
in the right-side clip you can clearly see a dark rectangle
of the doorhandle back in place.
Also, if you watch the comparison
video you can hear the mechanism make a loud squeak as the
door is opened, much louder than the whistling noise made
as it closed itself. If the door had been opened by one of
us as we were descending then this louder squeak would have
been recorded on camera. However, this does not appear - heavily
suggesting that the door was already open as we made our day
down.
This proves beyond any doubt
that the door was open and that it was as it closed that we
heard the whistling. But that just brings us back to our earlier
question - who opened it in the first place? This isn't just
a case of there being an open door that just knocked away
from its doorjam and just close. There's nothing in the room
that would be able to hold it open in the first place, and
not once have we ever seen that door left open. The heavy
mechanism prevents it from being kept open anyway. There's
no way that that door could have been open as we were walking
down - but if it were the case, what're the chances
of it deciding to close itself just as we were walking past
it anyway?
Someone, or something, must
have opened that door, or kept it held open as we walked past,
then let it close at that particular point. But who...?
At
the start of an investigation in Lupton House, the group went
on a walk-around of the building to see if anything could
be initially felt and thus find areas to leave recorders and
trigger objects. The group walked down from the second level
staff bedrooms and were making their way down the small staircase
back to the ground floor when an unusual sound was heard and
recorded. Just after this sound the videoer suddenly backed
off claiming that he had heard a doorhandle rattle next to
him.
On
the left here are two screencapture sections from the video
above. The clip on the left is from when the whistling sound
had just stopped and before the door clicked back into place,
and the clip on the right is from when the camcorder was refocused
back down the corridor after the event had taken place. Although
the quality is pretty low you can see that in the left clip
there is no door handle, and all that can be seen is the indent
and metal plate where the door grip clicks into place. However,
in the right-side clip you can clearly see a dark rectangle
of the doorhandle back in place.
